eldomtom2

I believe it transported a decent amount of timber in WW1. The last freight train ran in the early 30s.

It's loosely based on this Bagnall shunter.

Are you suggesting Hornby decided to genericify Stroudley coaches when they learnt of what Hattons was doing?

Maybe. The Etrl model was them trying to do the Bluebell's 323 on the cheap (it appears for one page in the books, and Ertl were really digging for characters to make). But SECR lined green has certainly proved a popular livery...

To be completely precise, Thomas has been consistently owned by the same company since 1997, when the Britt Allcroft Company bought the rights to the books from Heinemann Books. The company went through several changes and ownership, and is presently Gullane (Thomas) Ltd, owned by Mattel, which is seemingly a shell company kept around for what are presumably tax/contract reasons. Utter pedantry, I know... Is this what you're after?

I presume the logic has something to do with the retooled luggage van.

I believe I've worked out where Hornby got the idea to do their Thomas in SECR livery...

I know there were the locomotives built for the Southwold Railway - were there any more built for British customers?

The Pallot Museum NLR coaches are no longer actually four-wheelers but bogie coaches.

These are actually (through a long chain of events) copies of Tennmille Gauge 1 kits for LBSC Stroudley coaches.

Presumably, I know that under Bachmann's agreement the tools etc. are property of Mattel. I believe that it was not actually HiT who objected to the selling of the debranded Thomas and Percy, but rather Hornby, who claimed that Bachmann was infringing their UK license for Thomas models. The Bagnall 0-4-0 also first appeared in the Thomas range before appearing in a non-Thomas form, but as the Bagnall-based character it was meant to represent was rather different in design, I have my doubts that it was tooled as a specifically Thomas item. If all the Thomas toolings are

Those, and Tomy, and Lego, and pretty much everyone else making toy trains. A quick Amazon search will confirm that outside of Thomas trains with faces are actually quite rare in the modern toy world.

And none of those (with the possible exception of Chuggington) are modern competitors to Playtrains. I'm not sure why Hornby thinks they know better than pretty much every other toy company selling trains aimed at the 5ish market...

But that was my point - they make back the cost on the tooling by increasing the price of a single unit.

One wonders why they have gone with anthropomorphized characters when outside of the well-known but declining Thomas brand comparable products feature "realistic" trains.